Financial Analyst

Job Title: Financial Analyst (Contracts & Reconciliation)

Location: Waukegan Road North Chicago, IL 60064(100% Onsite Required)

Duration: 6 Months (Contract - potential for extension based on business needs)

Industry: R&D / Clinical Drug Supply Management

Role Overview

The Financial Analyst II will join the R&D Concierge Group, responsible for managing a budget of approximately $200 million. This is a high-volume, fast-paced role focused on the tracking, gating, and reconciliation of external spend against contracted amounts. The successful candidate will navigate multiple systems to ensure financial accuracy across hundreds of contracts, purchase orders, and amendments related to third-party services, manufacturing, and logistics.

Key Responsibilities

• Financial Reconciliation: Perform daily reconciliation of actual spend versus contracted amounts and plan. Identify discrepancies and drive resolution for outstanding balances.
• Contract & Invoice Audit: Review complex, multi-page contracts and invoices. Identify key data components, cross-reference data across sources, and track changes in contract amendments (values, activities, and timelines).
• Data Analytics & Reporting: Manage large datasets to prepare analytics, trend analysis, and dashboards for senior leadership. Play a key role in a data warehouse initiative by cleaning and formatting historical data.
• System Management: Utilize a variety of applications (SAP, SRM, Conga) to submit shopping carts, track purchase orders, and reconcile vendor payment histories.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with the Hiring Manager, Director, and R&D stakeholders (40% of time) to track forecasted spend and support clinical supply operations.
• Process Improvement: Actively challenge the status quo and contribute to initiatives aimed at improving data integrity and reporting efficiency.

Required Skills & Qualifications

1. Technical Proficiency

• Advanced Excel: Must be an expert in VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables, Power Query, and Macros. Ability to link datasets from different sources and create visual reporting outputs (graphs/dashboards) is essential.
• Systems Experience: Hands-on experience with SAP (or similar ERP) and Contract Management Software (e.g., Conga). Familiarity with invoicing systems and SRM is highly preferred.

2. Experience & Education

• Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Finance, Accounting, or a related field with 2 years of experience. Alternatively, 4–6 years of experience in financial reporting and contracting will be considered.
• Background: Strong foundation in Accounts Payable (A/P), invoice review, and basic accounting principles.
• Contractual Knowledge: Experience identifying financial impacts within contract language and amendments, specifically for third-party services or manufacturing.

3. Professional Competencies

• Analytical Rigor: High attention to detail; able to investigate "portover" data issues and reconcile complex spend categories ranging from hundreds to millions of dollars.
• Multitasking: Proven ability to juggle multiple tasks and applications simultaneously in a non-centralized system environment.
• Autonomy: Ability to work independently with minimal supervision while maintaining accountability for the accuracy of deliverables.

Preferred Attributes

• Experience in a corporate environment with stakeholder management.
• Knowledge of R&D clinical drug supply operations or freight/logistics spend.
• A proactive mindset—bringing ideas for process optimization and data organization.